Explain the principle of operation of a digital frequency meter.
A frequency meter has a small device which converts the sinusoidal voltage of the frequency into a train of unidirectional pulses. The frequency of input signal is the displayed count, averaged over a suitable counting interval out of 0.1, 1.0, or 10 seconds. These three intervals repeat themselves sequentially. As the ring counting units resets, these pulses pass through the time-base-gate and then entered into the main gate, which opens for a certain period of time interval. The time base gate prevents a divider pulse from opening the main gate during the display time interval. The main gate acts as a switch when the gate is open, pulses are allowed to pass. When the gate is closed, pulses are not allowed to pass that means the flow of pulses get obstructed. The functioning of the gate is operated by the main-gate flip-flop. An electronic counter at the gate output that counts the number of pulses passed through the gate while it was open. As the next divider pulse is received at main gate flip-flop, the counting interval ends and divider pulses are locked out. The resultant value displayed on a display screen which has the ring counting units of scale-of-ten circuits and each unit is coupled to a numeric indicator, which provides the digital display. As the reset pulse generator is triggered, ring counters get reset automatically and the same procedure starts again.
The range of modern digital frequency meter is between the range from104 to 109 hertz. The possibility of relative measurement error ranges between from 10-9 to 10-11 hertz and a sensitivity of 10-2 volt.
Compare AM and NBFM.
Derive the expression for overall noise figure of a cascaded system.